The Dream Protocol by Adara Quick

In fiery young Deirdre Callaghan’s home of Skellig City, no one has dreamt their own dream in over a thousand years. Dreams are produced by the Dream Makers and sold by the Ministry, the tyrannical rulers of the city. In Skellig City, years of life are awarded equally and the ruined are cast away beneath the city on their 35th birthday.

Unbeknownst to the Ministry, Deirdre’s handsome friend Flynn Brennan is afflicted with a terrible disease – a disease that accelerates the aging process. Knowing his fate if the Ministry should ever discover his illness, Flynn has lived his whole life hiding from their watchful eyes. When Flynn’s secret is finally discovered, Deirdre is determined to free him from the Ministry’s grasp. But to save him, she will have to reveal herself to a shadowy enemy…one that none of them even knew existed.

This book starts off slow with a lot of info dump that can seem daunting and even serve as a distraction from what is actually going on. However, once the large info dumps subside and the actual story takes place and characters are introduced, it’s a really interesting story.

Adara Quick submerges us into this futuristic world that would like to paint itself as a Utopia but is very much a Dystopia. The idea behind Skellig Michael [a large island off of Ireland,] being used in a dystopia story is intriguing and throughout the read, you can see the obvious Irish influence, not only in the names but mentions of Tír na nÓg and the like.

I am a world loving person and this book [though short and sweet,] did well to deliver in both the world as well as the laws that are within it so that we as the reader may have a better grasp on it all. To make this world believable. Really, is it so hard to believe that the human race becomes hung up on a new technological advancement and becomes dependent on one to sleep and dream? I don’t think so! Where justice is served by delivering nightmares as a form of punishment.

Interested yet? You ought to be.

There are more than a few issues with the book, but this author can write and the ideas that are there are brilliant. I will definitely want to read the second installment because as we rounded the bend into the last 3/4 of the book that was when everything became rather wonderful. If the whole book had been like that I would probably have rated it a 4, but it wasn’t and so I’ll rate it a 3 with a huge author to watch forsign, for future works.